“Don’t remind me. I swear, my aunt could talk a bear into doing the hula.” He shook his head as if to rid it of a distasteful memory.
The LeDeux clan was notorious throughout the South, especially with their leader, the outrageous Tante Lulu, calling all the shots. But, really, the Starr family was no better, Samantha had to admit. And there was an amazing thirty-some of them floating around, most of them involved with the family business, others just reaping the profits. Can anyone say alimony? Or freeloader? But all of them a little bit weird.
Stanley Starr, her grandfather who founded the grocery store chain, walked around in white plantation suits, under which he wore suspenders and arm garters. With his white hair and goatee, he resembled the late Colonel Sanders of chicken fame. Grandfather had a thing for Elvis and would allow no Muzak in his one hundred stores, only old Elvis songs. Coming from Scottish immigrants, Stanley instilled in his children . . . or at least some of them . . . a love of all things Scottish.
Then there was her father Bruce Starr who was currently on his fifth wife, Florence, a former women’s prison warden. Well, actually a superintendent of women’s prisons for the state of Alabama, a political appointment. Bruce cherished his Scottish heritage, too, and was often seen in a kilt, knee socks, and sporran. In Louisiana! They’d even had haggis for Thanksgiving one time. Eew!
Samantha’s mother Colette Starr, the first wife, lived on the Cote d’Azur when she wasn’t skipping from one society hot spot to another. You’d never know that her mother had been born in a Baton Rouge trailer park and her real name was Colleen.
Aunt Dot, a fifty-something, butch lesbian to the max and proud of it, ran the marketing section of Starr Foods like a general. She was responsible for Starr Foods being a gay pride sponsor for one of the Mardi Gras floats last year.
Her uncle Douglas (which he insisted be pronounced Doog-lass in a Scots dialect) was an overaged Casanova who hit on every woman he met. He, too, was often seen in a kilt and liked to use words like “bonnie” and “braw” and “Wheesht!” and “lassie” and “Dinna fash yerself!”
Her half brother Wallace was responsible for Starr Foods owning a thoroughbred racing farm in Kentucky. They’d yet to have a winner, but it was a great write-off in taxes, or so Wallace claimed. All of his racers had names related to Scotland, such as “Highlander,” “Braw Laddie,” “Loch Lassie,” “Bagpiper,” “Tartan,” “Heather Now,” and “Whiskey Girl.”
Aunt Maire had an obsession with pink, the color, not the singer. Everything she wore had to be pink, even her hair, lipstick, and nail enamel. Her house in the French Quarter was painted pink (which gave the historical preservationists a fit), and the interior was enough to give a person a Pepto-Bismol headache.
Angus Starr, her stepbrother by marriage or some such thing (yes, Angus, like the cow), was never seen without a laptop or the latest electronic gismo. Angus, ten or so years younger than Samantha, was the son by a previous marriage of Darla, her father’s third wife. Angus, when he wasn’t attending one college or another (Can anyone say professional student?) was supposedly working on a computer project for Starr Foods that would revolutionize their distribution, but he rarely showed up for work, it being too boring for his superior brain.
“I heard you met the newest additions to the LeDeux clan. At the wedding,” Luc said, jarring her from her reverie.
“News travels fast on the bayou. You mean the Alaska twins?”
“Yep. Tante Lulu’s already got her matchmaking wheels whirring.”
“Not in my direction, I hope.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Puh-leeze. I have enough of a man problem with Nick. Besides, what I don’t need is another egotistical, arrogant, two-timing doctor.”
“You paint all the medical profession with one brushstroke?”
“Believe me, I’ve seen enough with Nick and all his colleagues to write a book. Sleazebag doctors and the women they screw. You know the difference between God and doctors? God doesn’t think he’s a doctor.”
“Whoa,” Luc said with a laugh. “Anyhow, only one of the twins is a doctor. Daniel. The other one is a pilot. In fact, Aaron has already talked to Remy about possibly flying copters with his company.”
“Oh.” Funny, but the only one she’d noticed was Daniel. He’d been so compellingly attractive to her that she hadn’t even noticed the brother Aaron. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. I’m not in the market for another man in my life, doctor or otherwise.”
“Okay. Tell me what Nick’s been up to.” Luc took a small notebook and a pen out of the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket.
“I told you about his threats after the hearing.”
“That was two weeks ago. Are you regretting not filing a complaint like I suggested?”
She shrugged. “He showed up last Friday. I came home from work to find him here, inside the house.”
That got Luc’s attention. He sat up straighter. “Trespass.”
She shrugged again. “I’m not sure it could be classified that way. He was supposed to turn in his house keys before the divorce, but he claimed he just found the duplicate.”
“Which you made him turn over, right?”
“Right. And I had a locksmith here to change all the locks the next day.”
“What did he want?”
“He apologized for his behavior in the hallway after the hearing. He said he wanted to try for a reconciliation.”
Luc made a snorting sound of disbelief, which Samantha found rather insulting. “More like another shot at the money tree. No reflection on you, darlin’, but Nick is a world-class leech. I hope you told him to get lost.”
“I told him I wasn’t interested, but he didn’t believe me. In fact, he tried to . . .”
“Please tell me, he didn’t . . . you didn’t?”
She was rather insulted, again, this time that he thought she could be so gullible. “Of course not.” But then, she had to admit, “My grandfather showed up. I’d invited him for dinner. Nick is so clueless, he actually tried to stay for dinner.”
Luc shook his head with disgust.
“Every day since then, he’s been sending flowers or showing up at my house or my office. Nothing threatening exactly, just persistent.”
“I suspect his lawyer has told him that he’s going to lose his bid for more alimony. In fact, he might be cut off completely.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears!” Their new hearing date wasn’t until next month, but maybe Luc had heard something.
He shook his head in answer to her silent question. “Nothing from the court, but rumors are flying about Nick’s building project. Apparently, he lost a malpractice suit last year, and his rates are now through the roof. Then he hired that hotshot architect from Boston who drives around town in a hot damn silver Rolls Royce that cost more than most folks’ homes. That on top of a shitty economy and new, restrictive bank loan regulations . . . well, he’s getting desperate.”
Samantha knew exactly who Luc referred to. Nick had read about Frank Fenton-Lewis in Architectural Digest (Where else!) a long time ago and swore he would use his services someday.
It’s not that Samantha couldn’t afford the alimony. She just hated that so much of her cash was going to the bum. And, frankly, if she’d still been with Nick, she wouldn’t have blinked at giving him the capital for his little Taj Mahal which was pretentious in design, to say the least. Skylights? And Italian marble floors? Really?
“Desperation . . . that’s exactly what I’m sensing about him,” Samantha said. “Barely controlled anger under a façade of pseudo charm. Okay, I admit it, he scares me a little.”
“Do you want me to file for a restraining order?”
“Do I have grounds?”
“Probably not. Yet. But we could file anyhow. He wouldn’t like the publicity, even if we didn’t get a court order. It might deter him.”
“Or it might provoke him into doing more.”
&n
bsp; He nodded, acknowledging her point. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. What kind of security system do you have here?”
“Just a keyed entry and motion detectors.”
“I’m going to send a security expert over tomorrow to check out your whole property. It’s a good idea for a single woman to do that anyhow.”
“No gun?” she asked with a laugh.
“Do you have a gun permit? Do you know how to use a weapon?”
“No and no.” And she didn’t want to, either. Not even to wipe out her evil ex-husband.
“How about a dog?”
“Huh? You mean, like a pit bull or something.”
“Not necessarily. Dogs bark and intimidate intruders. Even little ones can be a deterrent.”
“I’ve never had a dog. My parents got divorced when I was a kid, and it never worked out with our living arrangements. And Nick is allergic to pet dander.”
“See. Even better.”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t know the first thing about finding a guard dog.”
“I have a friend with a pet rescue farm outside the city, up near Charmaine and Rusty’s ranch. Mick Andreas. C’mon. I’ll go with you.”
“Now?” She wasn’t sure she was ready to make a decision, right now.
“Sure. Mick is a client, as well as a friend. I have some papers to deliver to him. C’mon. It’ll be fun. We can stop at my place along the way and pick up my girls. They love going out to Mick’s place. Last time, they talked me into adopting a chicken, Miss Cluck-Cluck.”
She raised her brows, not sure if he was serious or not.
“The truth,” he said, making the sign of the cross over his chest. “We had fresh eggs every morning until Tante Lulu decided Miss Cluck-Cluck would make a good Sunday dinner.”
Now, she knew he was kidding.
“Actually, the neighbors were starting to complain.”
Maybe.
Thus, it was that by seven p.m. that evening, Samantha was the proud (stunned would be a better word) mommy to:
— Axel, an older German Shepherd who had been abused, resulting in a limp, half an ear gone, and bald spots.
— a Savannah cat with a mean attitude named Madeline who had the size and appearance of a small cheetah, including the typical black spots against a cinnamon background. The exotic animal had already turned up her nose at cat food, but apparently leftover fresh salmon at twenty dollars a pound would suffice. (Good thing her family owned a chain of supermarkets.)
— a cockatoo that could speak three languages.
— the two peacocks out in her backyard, here only for temporary fostering, but they kept pooping on the patio and pecking at the glass windows of the atrium, wanting to come inside. Samantha was pretty sure the fostering was only going to last until tomorrow, once her neighbors heard the noise or got a whiff of the turds. The only reason she’d taken them at all was because they had been returned five times to the rescue farm so far, and there was a hint that they might have to be “put down.”
And then the phone rang.
It was Nick. On her new private number! “Hey, sweetheart,” he said.
“Are you kidding me? Sweetheart?”
“Now, sweetheart.”
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to say, let’s get together. Just you and me. No lawyers. What do you say?”
Not a chance! She was about to end the call without saying anything more . . . it was best not to engage in any interaction with the creep . . . but then Nick asked, “What’s that noise in the background?”
There was the screeching noise of the peacocks, the barking of the dog, the hissing of the cat, and the bird squawking, “Merde! Merde! Merde!”
“It’s my bodyguards,” she replied. With inordinate pleasure!
Chapter Five
I’ll have my mint julep out on the verandah, Scarlett . . .
Daniel was driving out to the far end of Terrebonne Parish where he was meeting his brother Aaron. He kept checking his GPS to make sure he followed the directions his brother had given him. Aaron wanted him to see a property he was considering buying.
Hard to believe that they had been in Louisiana for two years now, he mused. Harder, still, to believe that their mother had been gone for so long.
Times flies when you’re having fun. Or not. Having fun, that is.
Daniel lived here in the South, only intermittently, but Aaron was here for the long haul. His brother flew copters for Remy LeDeux’s company and rented Remy’s houseboat for living quarters, but that might change if he bought this place he wanted to show him. Daniel already knew he was going to tell Aaron it was too far out. If Aaron wasn’t careful, he would be considered a hermit, like his brother. On the other hand, no chance of that! Aaron was the social butterfly of the family.
Aunt Mel had sold the air freight company, but was still in Alaska trying to get rid of her home in a down real estate market. What she would do then, he had no idea. Maybe move to Florida like she’d once said. Take a cruise. Go on a world tour.
Daniel traveled back to Alaska occasionally to help her out, but mostly because he had nothing better to do. Sometimes, he just got in his car, which he’d brought down to Louisiana, and drove. To Florida. To Texas. As far north as Kentucky. A regular bleepin’ tourist.
Searching. Always searching. For something. His soul, maybe.
While Aaron had settled comfortably into the Cajun culture, Daniel was still restless and unhappy since he’d given up medicine. Oh, he served on one of Tante Lulu’s charitable foundation boards, and had even tried a return to medicine by donating his services to fight Ebola in Africa for six months, but he was more depressed and aimless than ever. “No wonder! Why dint ya jist dunk yer head in a barrel of vinegar and expect ta come up smellin’ of honey,” Tante Lulu had commented at the time.
Mostly, he just hung out in the fishing camp he rented on a remote bayou. No TV, but he read a lot. Mostly thrillers, by writers like Grisham, Clancy, or Thor, but the occasional medical journal, too. And he was becoming a fan of classic rock music, the louder the better. No, not Barry Frickin’ Manilow. Songs like “Glory Days,” “Another Brick in the Wall,” “Barracuda,” “Roxanne,” “Paint It Black,” “Dream On,” and the like. No one to complain about the noise, except the gators and the snakes, and they weren’t talking. Most people probably thought he lay around listening to boring classical music. Okay, he did like Mozart and Beethoven in the right circumstances, but he had a wild side, too. Really.
“Fishing camp” was the term given to cabins on stilts out in the swamps. His was nicer than some, but still, it was temporary, and, in fact, he’d have to move soon since the owner wanted to sell. Would he look for another fishing camp to rent, or something else? And would it be here in Louisiana, or somewhere else? Decisions, decisions, and all he wanted to do was go fish, which he was becoming quite good at, by the way.
Aaron and Tante Lulu never gave up on trying to shake him out of his self-imposed “prison.” Really, he just wanted to be left alone. He would emerge from his cocoon when he was ready. And he didn’t need any psychiatrist to tell him that, either. Or Aaron who took that “brother’s keeper” Biblical quote way too seriously. Or Tante Lulu who had an opinion on everything in the world.
When he complained about their interference, Aaron usually answered, “Sue me!” and Tante Lulu advised, “Get over yerself!”
They still didn’t know what it was that Tante Lulu had to give them since she’d misplaced it and hadn’t been able to find it. Hah! Daniel wondered sometimes if there ever had been an actual “something important” she needed to give them. In fact, one time he’d told the interfering busybody just that and was rewarded with a thwap to the side of his head with a folded fan.
Supposedly, it was something from their deceased maternal grandmother in a small sealed box that rattled around like it might be a key, or an heirloom ring, or a voodoo medallion, according to Tante Lulu. “But then, D
olly Doucet was in a nursin’ home, at the time, with the Alls-hammer, crazy as a loon. Soz, it might jist be her false teeth.”
There were times Daniel barely restrained himself from throttling the old lady. Like yesterday, when he’d grumbled, “It couldn’t be too important if you lost it.”
“I dint lose it! I put it somewhere safe where I wouldn’t forget it. It’ll come ta me any day now.”
“Since it was originally intended for our mother, and she’s dead now, we might be dead by then, too.”
“An’ I might jist be the one ta do it, fool! Where’d ya put that hope chest I had made fer you?”
That had shut him up. Tante Lulu had made hope chests for both him and Aaron, as she did for all the men in her family. Good Lord! What was Daniel going to do with hand crocheted doilies and embroidered pillowcases, a cast iron skillet, and six different St. Jude statues? St. Jude was the patron saint of hopeless cases and a favorite of Tante Lulu.
Daniel saw Aaron leaning against his pickup which was parked along the berm of the road ahead. He pulled up behind him, turned off the engine, parked, and got out.
Daniel’s jaw dropped at what he saw before him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. This is going to be our new house.”
“Our?”
“Of course. Do you think I’d exclude you from such a sweetheart deal?”
Daniel was faced with the most outrageous thing his brother had done yet. Interference didn’t begin to describe it. “This isn’t a house. It’s a mansion. A frickin’ Gone with the Wind, Where-the-hell’s-Rhett, Tara plantation!”
“I’ve been worried about you, Dan. To say you’ve been morose would be a world class understatement.”
“Morose? You been reading the dictionary again?”
“Wallowing, then.”
“You’ve been talking to Tante Lulu.”
Aaron shrugged, as if that was a given.
“It’s not your problem, Aaron. I’m not your problem. Or your project.”